The Alcohol Report.

The above volume attempts to provide balanced and informative reviews of some of the key topics likely to interest those with a serious concern about drinking patterns and levels of alcohol-related problems. As would be expected, such a book is bound to be a ‘pot pourri’. Firstly, however, its range of topics is indeed very wide and the quality of reviews of these topics very high. It is interesting that the vast majority of authors are not medically qualified, and running through at least some parts of the book is an ambivalence to the concept of the Alcohol Dependence Syndrome. For example, in the initial chapter, whereas Alcohol Dependence Syndrome is recognized as a diagnostic entity, this model is not really accepted. It is also stated that many individuals with alcohol problems deal with their drinking difficulties themselves. Presumably the thousands of individuals who flood to treatment agencies, as individual practitioners have experienced, are those who cannot do this. This dichotomy is …